Something I would like would be for MoP version of GoSup demons to be our baseline ones (wrathguard, shivarra, observer, etc) and give us something like a dread lord, pit lord, etc either as talents, or even baseline. I’m not 100% on how to work it but demo deserves more than the demons we have now, even the Felguard.
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Problem is we’ve been asking for this 10+ years… more variety even if with glyphs… fallen on deaf ears 
I don’t think they’ll ever take our feedback into consideration…
Especially with them saying “they like where Destro/Demo is”…
Played Warlock since Vanilla, every spec through the good and the bad, I don’t think I can do another expansion like how it is, That’s why I’m gearing up this Shaman… for the first time in 15 years might not main Warlock.
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Yeah, I really don’t like that. I just don’t understand why they want us to be stuck with the Felguard. Even talents we have are based around him… we are DEMONOLOGY warlocks, we shouldn’t be tied to just 1 demon. And that 1 demon shouldn’t be the only powerful one we have…
Unfortunately, we don’t live in Shouldland, but I’m gonna continue to hope for these changes one day, even if it doesn’t happen in SL.
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Hey I agree, false hope is better then no hope right?..
It’s still early days in alpha, perhaps next coming months things change for the better, I’d be worried more so around September if nothing changes.
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I mean, I’ve heard them say classes have their “final builds” in alpha back in mop… then they made major changes to the talents and things, and that, imo, is the best the warlocks have ever been. If not, at least one of the best… then they destroyed demo completely in legion for, yeah… my current main. But I don’t wanna main this ez mode class just to get my warlock feel… I want my lock back lol
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That’s the Dream!, MoP warlock was the best for me in all specs, I lost my soul to WoW in MoP - WoD before prepatch legion killed everything…
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I don’t even need meta back. I just want my stronger demons, an aoe ability that I don’t have to wait to build imps for (aside from fel storm), doom to not suck, talents that are actually fun…
For destro, I just want KJC back, Fire and brimstone baseline with a fun single target talent in its place, and permanent infernal. Just seems right, idk.
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In an ideal world I would agree w/ this sentiment, but the past has set the precedent that unless players complain as loudly as possible, the devs have repeatedly ignored class issues in particular. We certainly still have a ton of alpha/beta left, but why can’t they provide more blue posts? They said they want to communicate better this time, but again, the past works against them.
It probably isn’t fair to the devs, but they’ve lost the benefit of the doubt unfortunately
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I do agree that classes/specs shouldn’t be homogenized in terms of “quality” at a variety of things, but I think there’s no way around classes/specs having some version of most of those things at this point unless they start changing the way they’ve designed content (at which point I’d expect to see other classes losing the fact that everyone CAN do everything).
As an example, because of the wild amount of trash in dungeons and raids, every spec/class needs to have some sort of way to functionally do area damage. I completely agree that some should be better than others, but I’m not sure you can feasibly get around everyone having AoE skills unless they start dropping the amount of large pulls. A long time ago we used to see large pulls handled via CC (sap, trap, etc). It slowed content down but there was less trash. Now, fundamentally, AoE is the mechanic.
Currently, raid mechanics have too much raid-wide damage (and PVP has too much burst) to avoid everyone having a defensive cooldown (of some sort). If more raid damage was avoidable - and PVP had less burst/CC - that wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
The problem becomes that certain things become required in content. When they’re required for content, without classes/specs having it, they simply won’t be viable. It’s easy to say “change the content” but much harder to do - while it’s easier to simply give spec X a baseline stun.
As a hypothetical, with 3 DPS specs, it’s pretty easy to imagine across damage types (and I’m not saying this is the case right now):
Affliction - low AoE, medium burst, high sustain
Demonology - high AoE, low burst, medium sustain
Destruction - medium AoE, high burst, low sustain
But if content requires high AoE then nobody will play affliction. So either content has to be flexible in requirements where certain specialties aren’t “required” - or players have to be able to fill the needs for that content (or they won’t be able to participate).
I agree that not everyone should have a stun in theory, but if every encounter requires having a stun, then everyone has to have one. They may (and should) be different types (i.e. targeted aoe, player-based aoe, single-target, etc) but if it’s required and you don’t have one, you simply cannot play (without being carried, etc). It’s the same for damage types and other aspects.
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Indeed - trying to design for raids + mythic plus + PvP makes things tough while trying to keep the classes balanced yet unique enough. I’m sure one of the biggest reasons why designing I’d likely much harder now than in the past
I disagree with this, as it is not actually required. Thing about it is, yes, while most people might gravitate towards specs that do the best in content for that specific content, it doesn’t mean that the other spec is not viable. An example of this being;
The Affliction spec for raiding, in Legion before the artifact weapon was fixed to let it actually be working instead of not even do it’s base functionality which was the case for EN and ToV, but in Legion before Aff became OP, Aff had a CD, but it was not good and never good entire xpac for priority target damage. It had high sustain damage and high AoE damage via Soul Flame after they fixed the weapon to begin working. However, the spec was entirely viable. What constitutes as viable is being able to do it’s job at least decently. It might not have had priority target damage, but it had very high sustain/ramp damage which was amazing for progression. Even when the weapon was broke, it’s sustain carried it through the fact that it did not have priority damage. You did not bring them for that priority add, you brought them to kill the boss or all of the bosses. You brought other specs/classes along to do the priority damage.
This is how raiding should be looked at. It is looked at this by Blizzard, but it is not looked at it like this by the players, because nobody thinks in terms of teams or raid. They think in terms of that damage meter and priority add killing. If it was a boss with a lot of adds, that ST specialized spec could stay on the boss fully, and be killing into the boss while the others finish off those adds and do other things. That’s what a group and a raid is supposed to be centered around: strengths of one classes making up for the weaknesses of others. You do not fill a raid iwth all multi dotters, or all ST specs. You fill your roster with different classes, different specs to make up for one another so you have an avaeraged out and balanced raid team capable of doing everything thrown its way.
I will not say all players do this, but a lot of the min/max mindset is determined to only be suited around that individual, not for the raid team because if it were for the raid team as a whoile, then players would NOT be thinking specs are not viable as blizzard does not to raids to individual damage, they tune boss fights around raid wide damage. They also tune mythic raid fight damage very low, and make mechanics a MUST do, where even one person messing up causes a wipe. But, that is not a DPS issue, but a mechanics issue. If everyone did the mechanics correctly, you could get away with very little damage being done overall and still make the enrage timer for more than half of the raid. Of course there are exceptions to this, like those DPS check fights, but they don’t do but 1 or 2 of those out of a 12 boss raid so they’re very very rare/small compared to the rest.
Not everyone needs a stun. Not everyone needs to do decent or better aoe damage. Not everyone needs amazing ST damage. Not everyone needs to do good cleave damage. If they wanted that to be the case, there would not be this many specs or classes in this game, at all.
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Hey everyone I’m traveling back home to be with family (was living alone, which mental health wise is a bad idea for me given social isolation, virtual classes, and the plague) so once I have a proper computer again in my old room I’ll update the first post with the new Covenant Datamines and anything else I can find.
Also lmao @ the Alpha Warlock thread, where a rando not-warlock-main is telling the other locks Felguard already has a kick/interrupt lmaooooooo and that our demons are fine and we all just need to health funnel more 
I swear no other class gets the wild disrespect we do in terms of open discussion class design on the forums
Agreed on all three but I’d add a Single Target dimension, unless you mean ST by “Sustained”
Also just remembered:
- Soulfire animation was reworked slightly and given to Fire Mages as Greater Pyroblast or whatever
- The actual playstyle of Meta minus the stance dancing was given to Shadow Priests, as DHs got the WOTLK/Cata Meta rather than our MoP/WoD Meta
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I still dream of the day for when we can enslave demons like hunters can tame pets. I’d never play another class if that happened.
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saw this as well. You’re always going to get the class tourists. I don’t mind it if they outright say that they don’t main the class.
I feel like the stance dancing made the meta playstyle completely different. As i said in a previous thread, as a Spriest you are fighting to stay in Voidform, i don’t really have that much control, I am just hanging on for dear life. With WoD Demo i had complete control over when and how i could use it. I don’t think there has been a spec even close how to how old Meta worked.
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Preamble: Many, many thanks for the work you’ve put into analyzing and compiling the changes.
Disclaimer: Probably all of you have a better idea of what the theorycraft of the class than I do, so I’m putting my ideas forth tentatively. I think my ideas are more conceptual or theme than numbers based.
Crisis: My biggest concern is that I’ve heard from several Alpha reviews that our utility Demon (like, Voidwalker) is as durable as tissue paper, and that with the new 6 second cast time this means: we get to die a lot. These are both things that need urgent fixing.
Big Demon Cooldowns I like that all Warlocks have a utility demon and a big summonable big deal demon as a Cooldown. Darkglare might not be the best demon, but I still like the concept. For Destruction I’m still a big fan of Infernals. Demonology deserve a bigger deal. I would like to see Doom Guard return for Demonology, and Tyrants (which are new, boring, and lack character) be replaced with Pit Lords. Or maybe Tyrants be replaced with Doom Guard in rotation and Pit Lord be the big cooldown.
Curses Yay! We get curses back!
…uhm, I’m not sure that I want to manage 4 curses every fight. What if Affliction got Curse of Weakness, Destruction got Curse of Elements and Demonology got Curse of Doom. Meanwhile Curse of Tongues could be baseline and be reshizzled as an Interrupt. I suspect this is the idea that’s going to get the most pushback, but I’m not super tied to it.
Baseline Abilities: I think utility abilities like Demonic Gate and Eye of Kilrog should all be baseline for whichever abilities the dust settles on and we end up getting. In terms of combat abilities, the earliest Warlock abilities I remember getting are Incinerate, Corruption and Shadowbolt. I’d like to see those 3 being baseline. I mean, for Affliction I want to have my Shadowbolt… and never feel obligated to cast it outside of Fits and Shiggles.
Shadowburn I find that the least satisfying thing about Affliction is I don’t have a good flow of Shard usage and a solid Execute. I always felt that Shadowburn felt more like an Affliction ability than anything, and that would give this spec some snap I think it’s missing.
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The 6 second cast must go, and I also agree that we should be using all the great demon models from Legion. i am so sick of every friggin spell being hard cast. We are to,d we have to be turrets, and then find out all encounters are heavy movement based…just sounds like a bad joke really. I have mained the same lock since BC and i do not want to play another class as a main.
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Datamined Changes:
PVP Talent Addition (brand new)
Covenant Ability Change
Now the curse applied isn’t random, presumably it’s tied to what kind of monster it is (ie casters get tongues, melee get NPC). This needs to be tested (God I wish there was a way to @ the Alpha testers lmao)
Anima Power Change (just at tooltip noun chance, no change otherwise)
Chaotic Effigy - Breaking an Ashen Phylactery increases the damage of your next [Shadow Bolt] (Affliction Warlock), [Shadow Bolt] (Demonology Warlock), [Incinerate] (Destruction Warlock) by 5%. This effect stacks up to 100 times.
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They are baseline?
It really made me upset because he felt entitled that he knew how to play the class when he clearly didn’t. You get to a point in the expac where “just health funnel m8” doesn’t do anything. If I tried to health funnel my void walker rn, I’d kill my character before it reaches max health.
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You’re misunderstanding my point I think. I’m not arguing that sustained single target damage can’t be valuable in a raid and/or that everyone relies on AOE only.
I’m saying that when you make content designed in such a way that certain aspects become “required” in content - then everyone has to have one - or a spec/class becomes not viable. And you can’t just limit your focus to raids, otherwise certain classes/specs can’t participate in other parts of the game (i.e. Mythic+/PVP/etc).
As an example: A lot of raid fights have “unavoidable” damage mechanics including raid-wide damage, damage that must be soaked, and people randomly getting hit for damage. Likewise, in PVP there is a lot of burst. In Mythic+ a few of the affixes guarantee you’re going to get hit for a nice chunk of damage. Due to this, classes HAVE to have a way to mitigate that. If they don’t, they’re a burden (or you potentially end up with cookie cutter groups, akin to “if you bring class A because they have ability 1, then you need class B to overcome class A’s lack of a defensive”). Either content has to be designed to allow different character designs to still be effective or classes have to receive somewhat homogenized kits. And not to accuse Blizzard’s staff of laziness, but the difficulty level in creating content such that 36 different specs have unique and different viable ways of approaching it in comparison to giving 36 specs similar tools that work on whatever content they design is massive.
As a current real-game example:
Blizzard has already listed changes regarding the effectiveness of area damage primarily because of how much Mythic+ relies on very large pulls and large area damage. Currently, if you don’t have a way to provide that high area damage, participating in (high enough tier) Mythic+ is pretty difficult.
There are ways to offset that. High tier Mythic+ is requiring large pulls of trash and area damage. If a spec/class can’t provide the required area damage, they have to have the ability to provide some way to make up that lost time. In the most extreme hypothetical:
- Class A provides high area damage and class B only provides low area damage
- Relatively speaking, class A’s high area damage saves 5 minutes of time on the run in comparison to what class B can provide
- Class B’s boss damage is so high that it saves 5 minutes of time on bosses in comparison to class A
Rationally you wouldn’t really care too much if you had class A or B in your group. At the end, it’s the same expected outcome.
The problem is currently that it doesn’t work like that. On raidbots, as Destruction or Affliction (re-gemmed, enchanted, azerited, essences, etc) my single target patchwerk DPS sims out almost identical. But affliction takes longer to ramp up damage and my area damage is worse. Yes affliction has benefits, instant cast spells for mobility, better survival, etc. I’m not dismissing that out of hand. I’m merely pointing out that the benefits from affliction need to be (roughly) equal in “value” to the benefits from destruction across content to make them really viable. If destruction can provide the same single target sustained damage as affliction and better area damage, then affliction needs some aspect that improves content success to offset that. Or they both need to be great at area and single target.
One way would be to reduce the amount of trash pulls and increase affliction’s single target damage. The issue with that though is that it helps M+ - but raid trash pulls aren’t what you build raid groups for. Then you need to make raid fights need equal parts AoE and single target (and then throw in PVP).
I want it balanced like that, so specs and classes ARE distinct with distinct benefits and tradeoffs. I’m just saying the biggest hindrance is content design and it is NOT an easy hurdle to overcome.